Podcast
Critical Readings
Hosted by CriticalReadings.com · EN
Critical Readings examines key literary texts using close reading and critical analysis, and explains these approaches in discussion. Listeners will learn about the texts themselves and about how to approach a text for critical analysis.
41episodes
Episodes
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CR Episode 324: The Poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson
May 2500:58:33Tap to summarizeRalph Waldo Emerson Released on 25 May 2026: https://criticalreadings.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/cr20260525.mp3 The panel reads three poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson—”Uriel”, “Ode Inscribed to William H. Channing”, and “The Snow Storm”—with special attention to the role of the poet-philosopher’s transcendentalist, romanticist, and abolitionist views in the poems.
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CR Episode 323: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V
May 1801:08:57Tap to summarizeThe Banquet Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) Released on 18 May 2026: https://criticalreadings.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/cr20260518.mp3 The panel discusses the concluding act and scene of the play, with special attention to the linguistic wordplay and the Shakespearean critique of players, audiences, and critics alike in the both the play-within-a-play device and in Puck’s epilogue.
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CR Episode 322: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV
May 1100:53:23Tap to summarizeCalista Flockheart, Christian Bale, Dominic West, and Anna Friel in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999) Released on 11 May 2026: https://criticalreadings.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/cr20260511.mp3 The panel discusses the resolution of the love quadrangle, as Puck puts right the enchantments in order to bring Oberon’s original plan to fruition, before turning to consider Titania’s relationship to her husband in the wake of her own enchantment.
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CR Episode 321: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III
May 401:10:01Tap to summarizeThe panel discusses the deployment of additional fairy magic, with the transformation of Bottom and the confounding of Helena, and the confusion that results when both Bottom and Helena misbelieve that they are subject of their friends' pranks.Continue reading
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CR Episode 320: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II
Apr 2701:00:54Tap to summarizeThe panel discusses the second act and the moment in the play when the plans of the characters begin to go astray due to mischance, with special attention to the tension between Titania and Oberon, and the expanding geographical knowledge of the time.Continue reading
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CR Episode 319: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I
Apr 2000:52:25Tap to summarizeThe panel discusses the setting and form of the play, before discussing the first act and its complicated love quadrangle, with attention given to love and the threat of violence, and the characters' creation of overlapping plans that threaten to collide.Continue reading
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CR Episode 318: Paradise Regained, Book IV
Apr 1301:03:36Tap to summarizeThe panel discusThe panel discusses the end of the second temptation, with Satan's exasperation and the exhaustion of his intellect, followed by his less cunning and crafty final temptation, set high atop the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, whence he falls anew.Continue reading
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CR Episode 317: Paradise Regained, Book III
Apr 601:00:08Tap to summarizeThe panel discusses the continuation of the second temptation in the desert, with Satan's various presentations of worldly power, and the explication that acceptance of any of his 'gifts' is tantamount to acknowledging his sovereignty over the recipient.
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CR Episode 316: Paradise Regained, Book II
Mar 3000:56:34Tap to summarizeThe panel discusses the second book, with special attention to the newest appearance of Satan, his confusion, and the difference between his first temptation (bread) and this second temptation (a feast), before shifting to his offer of worldly powers.
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CR Episode 315: Paradise Regained, Book I
Mar 2301:08:32Tap to summarizeThe panel discusses the first book of Paradise Regained, the sequel (or continuation) of Paradise Lost, with special attention paid to the particular qualities of the first temptation in the desert, and to the poet's references to the earlier poem.
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